New Releases by Pete Seeger

(Richmond Music Folios). This songbook celebrates the legacy of Pete Seeger with 41 favorites presented with words, melody lines, and chord symbols: All Mixed Up * The Bells of Rhymney * Blue Skies * Goodnight, Irene * Guantanamera * If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song) * Lonesome Valley * Michael Row the Boat Ashore * Midnight Special * Over the Hills * So Long It's Been Good to Know Yuh (Dusty Old Dust) * This Land Is Your Land * Turn! Turn! Turn! (To Everything There Is a Season) * We Shall Overcome * Where Have All the Flowers Gone? * and more.

Long an icon of American musical and political life, Pete Seeger has written eloquently in a diverse array of publications but nowhere is his life story more personally chronicled than in these, his private writings, documents and letters stored for decades in his family barn. Pete Seeger: His Life in His Own Words, collects Seeger's letters, notes, published articles, rough drafts, stories and poetry - creating the most intimate picture yet available of Seeger as a musician, an activist and a family man. The book covers the passions, personalities and experiences of a lifetime of struggle - from the pre-WWII labour movement and the Communist Party, to Woody Guthrie, the Civil Rights movement and the struggle against the war in Vietnam. The portrait that emerges is not of a saint, but a flesh-and-blood man, struggling to understand his time and his place.

The Pete Seeger Reader brings together writing by and about Seeger and covers his songwriting, recording, book and magazine publishing, and political organizing over the course of his lengthy, storied career.

This book demonstrates the key role the song "We Shall Overcome" played in the civil rights, labor, and antiwar movements in America.

Poor Lee! He used to be a jazzman who could make the piano go yimbatimba- TANG--zang-zang. But now he's lost his hearing, and the bandleader had to let him go. So Lee goes to a school for the deaf to learn sign language. There, he meets Max, who used to play the sax. Riding the subway to class, they start signing about all the songs they love. A bass player named Rose joins in and soon they've got a little sign language band. And in no time they're performing for audiences in the subway, night after night. Living legend and Kennedy Center honoree Pete Seeger, renowned poet Paul DuBois Jacobs, and Coretta Scott King honor winner R. Gregory Christie present a jazzy riff on the power of music, overcoming obstacles, and all the different ways to hear the world. So, who will listen to a deaf musician? Everyone!

For children raised on Abiyoyo here's a cozy collection of old and new classics to share with parents. Each section is preceded by an introduction describing the origins of the stories. Also included is a brief afterword for each story, suggesting ways to personalize the stories for the reader's own family. The book ends with a collection of story beginnings to help anyone become a storyteller.

This is the basic manual for banjo players at any level. Covers all the fundamentals of strumming, hammering-on, and pulling-off. Includes folk and traditional songs all with melody line, lyrics, and banjo accompaniment, and solos in standard notation and tablature.

A young boy and his father save the town that ostracized them from a hungry giant in this picture book adaptation of a South African lullaby and folk story. In a small town, one young boy loves walking around playing the ukulele, but the people get tired of the clink, clunk, clonk and beg him to stop while covering their ears! The boy’s father has a magic wand he uses to make things disappear, like a playing card or a glass of water—or a chair just as someone’s about to sit. The townspeople have had quite enough of the boy’s noise and the father’s tricks and drive them from the town. But then the giant called Abiyoyo comes to town and starts gobbling up everything in sight. If they work together, can the magician and his son make this very big problem disappear?

One of the most important and influential figures in American music offers his autobiography in words and songs. This down-home style perspective covers everything from the music business to social activism. Includes complete music to Seeger's songs. 50 photos. Line drawings throughout.

"Filled with beautiful music, glorious lyrics, and the soul of one of the most important historical and social revolutions of our history." -- Judy Collins This narrative scrapbook collects forty songs and includes profiles of activists and a chronological outline of the extraordinary events from 1955 to 1968. It is a story of courage and resilience on the part of ordinary people. From 'This Little Light of Mine' to 'We Shall Overcome,' the music of the time was both encouragement and catharsis for those who struggled against adversity in an effort to change the world. In words, photographs, and music, Pete Seeger and Bob Reiser tell the story of the civil rights movement, building their narrative around the accounts of people involved and the songs that inspired their struggle. It documents the sit-ins, freedom rides, and marches that occurred along the long path to triumph in an uncertain age.

Pete Seeger is an outstanding folksinger and an American treasure. Millions in every corner of the globe have listened to and sung along with Seeger—discovering the riches of America's folk song heritage. Originally published in 1961, this book includes the most popular songs in Pete Seeger's songbag. 84 traditional folk songs, including such favorites as "Irene Goodnight," "Darline Corey," "Shenandoah," etc. Each song comes complete with melody line, lyrics, guitar chords, and Seeger's own introductory comments. Beautifully illustrated throughout with over 100 reproductions of documentary prints and wood-cuts, American Favorite Ballads presents a rich panorama of our America's great folk song legacy.

The well-known folk singer explores the appeal, traditions, significance and performers of folk music from America, Asia, Europe and Africa, and discusses aspects of the modern folk revival.

From Introduction: "Huddie Ledbetter, nicknamed Leadbelly, died in December, 1949 at the age of 64. He had come out of the deep South, settled down in a little apartment on New York's lower East Side, determined to build a successful career as a musician. Unfortunately, there was not much interest in folk music then. He got occasional jobs singing for schools and colleges, or at little parties where they were raising money for some cause like helping Loyalist Spain. Until the last three years of his life, he had barely recorded more than a few dozen songs. Today, through his recordings, he is world famous as one of the greatest singers of folksongs of this century. Songs he composed, or helped put together out of the fragments of older tunes, or adapted into the form in which we all know them now, have sold in the tens of millions: Good Night Irene, Bring Me A Little Water, Silvy, Midnight Special, Rock Island Line, Kisses Sweeter Than Wine (the tune), Old Cotton Fields At Home, and many others. The driving rhythms he developed on his unusual guitar, with its double strings, are unforgettable to anyone who ever heard them. Today, many young people wishing to learn his songs as he sang them, are trying to learn his style of guitar playing. This book is designed to help them, but it cannot be considered a substitute for listening to the recordings of Leadbelly....It must be remembered that more is involved than playing the correct notes and rhythm. When you listen to Leadbelly on record, you are listening to a man with many years of experience play an instrument. To achieve what he achieved is something which cannot be communicated in a book." - Julius Lester